Genres

Drama

War

Full Plot

Tyneside ship-builder Joe Maddison lost his faith in the trenches at the Somme in 1916. Now that World War Two has begun he is too old to enlist alongside his son and son-in-law and is also in a reserved occupation so, after his wife Polly has left him for a sailor,he joins the Home Guard with his friends,Marxist Eddie and cynical,wise-cracking Harry.Harry's anti-authoritarian attitude causes problems with Mr. Simpson,the company commander,and Joe leads the men out on strike after Harry is expelled. However,after he has dealt with an unexploded bomb he is acclaimed a hero,and,along with his friends, reinstated,being promoted to corporal.He also meets widow Selina who brings him out of his shell but Polly returns,with the sailor's child,seeking a reconciliation, a request which splits the family. Come 1945 and the war is ending but Joe still has his personal conflict to resolve.
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Quotes

[in the shipyard, during the lunch break, Joe and Harry look at their sandwiches]
Joe Maddison: I've got cheese. You?
Harry Crawford: Potted.
Joe Maddison: Potted what?
Harry Crawford: I'm buggered if I know! Mind you, next door's dog's gone missing. It could be potted Rover.
Joe Maddison: I'll take a chance.
[they swap sandwiches]
[Harry led the Home Guard in singing a ribald song. Mr Simpson, now calling himself Major Simpson, was appalled and has summoned Harry to his office]
Mr. Simpson: That song. It's indecent. Women and children could have heard it.
Harry Crawford: We were in the middle of the countryside. Didn't seem to bother the cows. Songs like that kept us going on the Western Front.
[Simpson shows Harry a photograph]
Mr. Simpson: I know just as much as you about the Western Front, Private.
Harry Crawford: You're a bloody liar! I know you'd like us to think that that was taken in the thick of the action in France, but it *wasn't*, was it?
Mr. Simpson: It was taken at an army hospital.
Harry Crawford: Aye, at a big country house in North Yorkshire. My sister was a nurse - she worked there. And so did you.
Mr. Simpson: [defeated] All right. In 1914 I was too old for active service. But I volunteered for the Medical Corps, trying to heal the sick, taking away their pain. Is that such a crime.
Harry Crawford: No it isn't. But don't *ever* pretend you were one of us. John, I know what it's like. But no-one will ever understand what it was like on the Western Front unless they were there. I've still got the shrapnel in my back to prove it.
Mr. Simpson: That must still be painful.
Harry Crawford: Of course it's bloody painful. But do you know what makes it worse? I thought there'd be some sort of reward at the end of it. Instead of which, I've spent the whole of my life being ordered about by cocky little sods who have got no idea what they are talking about. You are just the latest, but easily the worst.
[Mr Simpson is filling in the official form for Joe to join the Home Guard]
Mr. Simpson: [reading from the form] Why do you want to join the Home Guard?
Joe Maddison: This war's done its best to ruin my life. I want to kill somebody. Nazis will do, to be going on with.